Reference Architecture

Four-tier architecture with defense-in-depth security, multi-region redundancy, and compliance-ready data boundaries.

Architecture

Four-tier platform architecture

Tier 1: Presentation Layer

Web Application

React-based SPA served via global CDN with edge caching

API Gateway

Rate limiting, authentication, request routing, and TLS termination

Load Balancer

Application-level load balancing with health checks and auto-scaling

Tier 2: Application Layer

Cost Analysis Engine

Real-time cost aggregation, normalization, and multi-cloud correlation

Optimization Engine

ML-powered recommendation engine for rightsizing, reservations, and waste elimination

Governance Engine

Policy evaluation, tagging enforcement, and compliance monitoring

Reporting Service

Report generation, scheduling, and delivery via email, Slack, and API

Event Processing

Real-time event stream processing for anomaly detection and alerting

Tier 3: Data Layer

Time-Series Database

High-performance storage for cost metrics with sub-second query latency

Relational Database

PostgreSQL-based storage for configuration, policies, and user data

Object Storage

S3-compatible storage for raw billing data, reports, and audit logs

Cache Layer

Redis-based caching for frequently accessed queries and session management

Search Index

Elasticsearch-based full-text search across resources, tags, and cost items

Tier 4: Integration Layer

Cloud Connectors

Native connectors for AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, and private cloud billing APIs

Webhook Gateway

Outbound webhook delivery with retry logic, signing, and delivery confirmation

SCIM Endpoint

User provisioning endpoint for identity provider synchronization

Data Export Pipeline

Automated data export to Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, and S3

Encryption

Encryption at every boundary

Location	Method	Standard
Client to API Gateway	TLS 1.3 with certificate pinning	FIPS 140-2
API Gateway to Application	Mutual TLS (mTLS)	Zero-trust
Application to Database	TLS 1.3 with client certificates	In-transit
Database at Rest	AES-256-GCM	At-rest
Object Storage	SSE-KMS with customer-managed keys	At-rest
Inter-Service Communication	mTLS via service mesh	Zero-trust
Backup Storage	AES-256 with separate key hierarchy	At-rest

Network Topology

Network security zones

Public Zone

CDN, WAF, and API Gateway. Only externally accessible components.

CDN, WAF, Load Balancer, API Gateway

Application Zone

Application services in private subnets. No direct internet access.

Compute instances, Kubernetes cluster, Service mesh

Data Zone

Databases and storage in isolated subnets. No internet access, only application zone connectivity.

Databases, Cache, Object Storage, Search

Management Zone

CI/CD, monitoring, and administration. Accessed via VPN/bastion only.

CI/CD, Monitoring, Logging, Bastion

Compliance Boundaries

Compliance boundary architecture

Our architecture supports multiple compliance boundaries within a single deployment, allowing you to maintain different security postures for different data classifications.

Data Classification Boundary

Separate processing pipelines for different data classification levels. Cost data from classified environments is processed in isolated compute with dedicated encryption keys.

◆Separate encryption key hierarchies
◆Isolated compute environments
◆Independent audit trails
◆Classification-based access policies

Regulatory Compliance Boundary

Regional boundaries that enforce data residency requirements. EU cost data stays in EU regions, HIPAA data in compliant environments, government data in authorized clouds.

◆Regional data isolation
◆Compliance-specific encryption
◆Regulatory audit logging
◆Cross-boundary data flow controls

Organizational Boundary

Logical isolation between business units, subsidiaries, and partner organizations. Each entity gets its own namespace, access policies, and cost allocation model.

◆Namespace isolation
◆Entity-level RBAC
◆Independent cost models
◆Cross-entity aggregation controls

Network Security Boundary

Defense-in-depth network architecture with WAF, DDoS protection, micro-segmentation, and zero-trust inter-service communication via mutual TLS.

◆WAF with OWASP rules
◆Layer 3/4 DDoS protection
◆Service mesh mTLS
◆Network policy enforcement

High Availability

Reliability and disaster recovery

Multi-AZ Deployment

All production services deployed across multiple Availability Zones with automatic failover. No single point of failure.

Cross-Region DR

Standby environment in secondary region with < 4 hour RTO and < 1 hour RPO. Automated failover for critical components.

Database Replication

Synchronous replication within regions, asynchronous across regions. Point-in-time recovery for up to 35 days.

Auto-Scaling

Horizontal auto-scaling for compute and ingestion services. Handles 10x traffic spikes without performance degradation.

Health Monitoring

Comprehensive health checks at infrastructure, application, and business logic levels. Self-healing for common failure modes.

Chaos Engineering

Regular chaos engineering exercises to validate resilience. Failure injection testing for all critical paths and dependencies.

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